Welsh Newspapers

Search 15 million Welsh newspaper articles

Hide Articles List

9 articles on this Page

Lectures on Fruit Culture.

News
Cite
Share

Lectures on Fruit Culture. The third lecture was given in the College on 'Friday evening by Mr. J. L. Pickard. Mr. J. Morgan. J.P., The Larches, Aberystwyth, occupied the chair and in his opening remarks he said that be was afraid that he was perhaps not one of the most uitable persons to preside overan important gather- imar of people interested in growing trees for the beautifying of the neighbourhood, as his business, that of a timber merchant, led him into destroying a Tast amount of timber which grew on the pine clad tlb of our beautiful Wales, but still he had a keen appreciation of gardening, and in his own little way he tried to make his own garden as bright and as attractive-looking as he possibly could, and he wm sure he should be as glad of any practical kitfts from an authority like Mr. Pickard'as any one wan was attending tlan course (hear, hear). I Mr, Pickard briefly recapitulated the points he kari advanced the previous week, and said that although substances containing nitrogen, phosphate and potash composed a complete manure in so far as the requirements of the plants were concerned in our ordinary soil, yet they were not the only substances used by the plants. Every plant requires iron and sulphur, and lime, and if any particular il were deficient in any of these substances it wou-fl be just as necessary to add them to the land as it. is necessary to add nitrogen or potash, or phosphate. Iron has an important connection with the colouring matter in flowers, and where we desire bright, deep, intense and clear colour in our flowers it is a good plan to water them occasionally with water in which a handful of rusky nails "has been steeping for some days; for all ordinary purposes however there is plenty of iron in the soil. The only difficulty we have in respect to iron is to get it combined in suitable forms in the soil. It is very liable to form ferrous #alts in badly drained or badly dug soil, and these sait»s are highly poisonous to the roots of fruit trees. We want them to change into ferric salts if possible, then no harm can be done to the roots. Sulphur is always present in abundance, and the same may be said about lime, it is rarely iadeed that a soil does not contain sufficient lime for the nutriment of our plants, nor can it be wondered at when we consider that geologists tell us one sixth of the earth's rocky cruet is composed of some kind of limestone, either as limestone, or chalk, or marl, or gypsum; and lime is one of the easiest dissolved of all minerals. Gardeners, and farmers too for that matter, have for ages past been in the habit of using a good deal of lime for some of their crops, and often with the happiest results. Almost every gardener knows of cases where the crop of grapes, or some other fruit crops have been doubled after the application of a liberal dressing of lime, and curiously enough, one rarely hears of harmful results following its use. All fruit trees are fond of lime, and it will well repay us to examine its action rather closely. I* a state of nature it is almost always found com- bined with carbonic acid, and in this state we usually speak of it as mild lime," and in this form the great majority of plants have to use it. We. however, want something more useful than this, so we burn the mild lime, we drive off the carbonic acid as a gas, and the lime is left behind; this we speak of it as "quicklime" Lime never occurs naturally as quicklime, for the simple reason that it is impossible for it to remain in this state, owing to the great affinity it has both for -wa,t,er and carbonic a -id. Freshly burnt lime has biiieh an affinity for water, and it absorbs it with such rapidity, that a considerable amount of heat is evolved in the process. The conversion of slacked lime into carbonate of lime or mild lime is a slower process. Sooner or later, however, it takes place, and as it withdraws the carbonic acid from decomposing organic matter in the soil, it hastens the process of decomposition, and sees that the material is decomposed in the right way. A knowledge of these simple chemical facts will help us to understand the action of lime in our gardens. Lime acts in three distinct ways in the soil. It improves the texture of all soils that are heavy or wet. It breaks up and improves the chemical con- stituants of the soil, and it has an important influence upon the biological occupants of the soil. The effect of lime upon the texture of a soil is amongst its most striking properties. Every gardener knows well what a transformation is effected in the texture of a stiff clay soil by the application of a dressing of lime. It has a much less tendency to puddle in wet weather, and it is rendered very much more friable when it is dry. Instead of drying and shrinking into hard lumps, it crumbles up into a coarse or fine powder, and this effect which lime has of lightning" heavy soils will often last for years. But more important perhaps than even its mechanical action is the chemical action of lime. It is a most important agent in unlocking the stored up fertile portions of the soil. This it does by decomposing different minerals and setting free the potash they contain. Its action in decomposing vegetable matter, and releasing the nitrogen it contains, so that it is available for the plants use, is also one of its most important uses, and this accounts for its beneficial action when applied to peaty soils, or soils that by reason of heavy manurings, and too little digging, laave become rich in stagnant organic matter. In soils of this description lime is an absolute necessity in order to check or neutralise the sour tendencies of such soils. Sourness is chiefly caused by want of air, and by matter rotting the wrong way, and this. as we have already seen, causes acids to form that air harmful to our plants. If a soil is once allowed to become sour, it will remain sour for a long time unless we use very energetic measures to sweeten it. The use of lime as a corrective for sour lands has long been practically recognised. The presence of acidity in a soil is hurtful to vegetable life, and when we reflect that after planting a bed of strawberries, we can have no opportunity for at least three years of again digging it 10 admit air, and for a still longer time in the case of all other fruits, we see how impor- tant it is to use every means in our power to sweeten the soil. The generation of sourness in a soil is almost sure to give rise to certain poisonous compounds, and if we allow these compounds to form, we shall suffer by losing the roots of our plants. The roots will rot off at their tips, then the harmful influence is felt right through the tree, and it is quite certain that when this happens, the tree can get no food. Lime, in sweetening a soil, prevents the forma- tion of these compounds for a long time after it is applied, and for this reason alone it is advisable to apply lime to all soils we intend planting with fruit crops, unless we are satisfied that they are perfectly sweet, and are likely to remain so. Another important feature of lime is that it prevents fungoid growth on our trees. Every gardener has, to his sorrow, a close acquaintance with mildew, with rust, with canker, and so on. Every one of these diseases are caused by tiny microscopical organisms known as fungoids." These live upon the sap of the trees, and they grow with such rapidity that trees cannot long survive their attack; indeed more trees die of canker than all other causes put together- Fungoids can find no support from trees that are comfortable and happy in sweet, warm, well- drained soil, but directly these soil conditions are reversed, fungoids get a chance, canker-sets in, and the tree's useful days are over. Lime has another important role in promoting favourable- conditions for a teeming multitude of life in our sods that are' actively engaged in preparing plant food in the soil. If we apply finely broken up feones as a manure, the plant can make no use of them untiff their character is completely changed. The bonesh are attacked by bacteria in the soil*, and they work so industriously in breaking up the-bones, or in other words, in decomposing the bones thati their most useful part has no difficulty Eu'dissolvin ar in water, and combining with oxygen ready to 00' taken up by the plants roots. It is utterly impossible to convey to you any idea of the vast" y numbers, or the vast usefulness of these germs isr the soil. They are tiny members of tStevegetablb world, every individual germ or microbe -consistirg- of a single cell, without hardly any structural' organisation. They are so tiny that it is said a million of them could be packed mto a tuSe of the diameter of a human hair; and fi miltions of them could find comfortat.ferecreation space on a postage stamp. One often hears a great deal about the harmful propensities of micro. We^re warned against their insiduoas attacks at ererv turn until we have come to r gard them with feelings of fear and dread, yet if we only keep the harmful ones at arms length, the remainder are-the most useful servants we can possably have,, and moreover, we cannot possibly do without them. The manures, &c., which we apply to soils, and which are generally supposed tononrish the plant, are in reality the breeding and food necessities for sdll organisms; and it is these bacterial bodies which convert the added material into soluable and useful compounds for plant absorption; it therefore follows that a soil to be fertile must be tferm occupied, and the more active these germs are the more plant food can be prepared. Whea Wo iUL ullhisr our soil we want to be thoroughly L 11 impressed with the fact that we are digging, d manuring, and draining, and liming our land in order to make it warm and comfortable and sweet for the lowly workers in nature's laboratory, who will cheerfully perform the work we cannot do for ourselves, if we only supply them with food, with aii- vrith moisture, and with warmth in the soil. If we lleg-lcd, the.e primary conditions we may not exterminate the microbes, but we allow unfavour- able conditions to be set up which are bad for the microbes. and bad also for our fruit trees. We have now spent a great deal of time in dis- cussing the reasons why we should carefully prepare and manure the ground for fruit trees, but these details are all fundamental principles, and are just as important in the general practice of horticulture as they are in fruit growing. We have seen in an elementary way that all the food from the soil is taken up by the root hairs, and that it is always taken up in a dissolved state as a weak watery mineral solution; that it joins forces in the leaf with carbon di-oxide from the air to form elementary starch, which in turn changes into sugar, and then into higher organic forms until it finally becomes living matter, and capable of increasing the size of tree, or producing flowers and fruit. But our responsibility does not end here; we have not only to see that proper plant food is manufactured in the plant, but we have to see that the plant makes the best possible use of it after it is manufactured. The lecturer illustrated by means of blackboard and other drawings how plants increased in size by cell formation in the leaf, and in the Combiuna layers of the stem and branches, and pointed out how necessary it was that these cells should not only be formed, but that they should be crammed with stored-up material ready for the trees supreme effort in producing flowers and fruit in the follow- ing year. Any attempt to make new wood after midsummer, he said, was a mistake, as the wood formed after that ttme would be weak and sappy, and would have to be taken off at pruning time; wood of this description serves no useful purpose; it only gobbles up the victuals that ought to go for the production of of fruit. It is used up in the elongation of a useless part of the branch, instead of being stored up in the cells that are already formed. Fruit represents food material not required elsewhere in the tree, and all that is not required for immediate use is stored up in the branches it fills up the cells, and causes what we term" ripening" of the wood Now if we allow our trees to make t continuous growth right through the summer there f is no surplus food to store: it is all sent up into the end of the branches and lost. But if we can pre- vent this loss, and get the earlier formed cells well filled with material we can confidently expect a big crop of fruit. How can we prevent this waste of material ? Well, by adopting the same plan with our ordinary fruit trees that we adopt with our vines, and peaches, and figs. Pinch out the growing points of all the branches as soon as they have made sufficient wood for the future prosperity of the tree. This operation of summer pinching should never be delayed after the middle of June. At this time it can easily be done with the thumb and finger, and it is of far more service to the plants if done then than it would be if delayed a month longer. The operation induces habits of economy and thrift in the trees as they are obliged to store up the surplus material, which they can no longer send to the end of the branches. It is pro- bable that after a week or two the branches will again begin to grow. Never mind, go over them again when two or three leaves are formed, exactly as you would do with vines. Sometimes, in the case of young and vigorous fruit trees even this method may not give us the desired result, as there may be more sap than the tree can utalise. The flow of sap depends upon root development. If there are a lot of long thick roots we shall get big branches, and big branches are a long time before they produce fruit. In this case we lift the trees in the autumn, and prune their roots. When the roots are cut it checks rapid growth to branches for two or three years, and not only that but it has an important influence in delaying their flowering period for a week or two in the spring. This often enables us to secure a crop of fruit where otherwise, owing to late frosts, and cold wet weather, the flowers would all have been destroyed. The lecturer next explained the influence of light and heat in influencing and restraining growth. Heat lengthens, light strengthens, was a maxim always to be borne in mind, both in respect to roots and brandies. Their growth is the result of external forces at work upon them, and it is only by understanding and controling these external forces that we can hope to understand and control our fruit trees. Mr. Austin, gardener, Abermad, mentioned in support of what the lecturer had said regarding root pruning, that every tree he had root pruned during the last three years was now carrying a crop of fruit, while those which had not been root pruned had scarcely a fruit upon them, and he thought with Mr. Pickard that this was largely owing to the fact that the root pruned trees were fourteen to sixteen days later in flowering than the others were. After questions had been asked and answered, Mr. Colville proposed and Mr. Weller seconded a vote of thanks to the Chairman and the lecturer. The question set by Mr. Pickard for the ensuing week was; Describe the effects produced by pinching out the ends of branches of fruit trees in early summer." At the close of the meeting the members of the Paxton Society decided, upon the suggestion of the Registrar and Professor Middleton, to erect a group of plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables at the forthcoming Welsh Industries Exhibition in the College, the group to cover a space of about three hundred square feet, and to be representative of the horticulture of the district. The following were appointed as a small committee to carry out the initial arrangements in their own districts. Mr. Weller, Aberystwyth, Mr. Austin, Llanrhystyd road, and Llanilar. Mr. Hopkins, Nanteos, and Capel Seion, Mr. Pateman, Llanbadarn, Mr. North- wood, Gogerddan, and Mr. Colville. These gentle- men will be glad of the promise of the loan of plants, flowers, fruit and vegetables in order that the group may be both thoroughly representative and attractive. At the request of several members "Tomatos" will be the subject of Friday evening's lecture. i y

----------The Prince of Wales…

FESTINIGG.

[No title]

CRICKET.

- GOLF.

!LLANBRYNMAIR.

ABERYSTWYTH BOARDI OF GUARDIANS.

Advertising